


Play It Like It Lays

by thepointoftheneedle



Series: Recognition [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Betty Cooper law student, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Future AU, Writer Jughead Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25463701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: This follows on from Recognition but can be read as a stand alone. Betty and Jug have been together since they were fifteen years old.  That kind of history presents its own challenges.  How can a relationship allow people the space to grow and change when it has been established before they even really knew who they were?He’d always known that she could do so much better than him. It was the Woody Allen plot incongruity. Why the hell would Annie Hall waste her time on Alvy Singer? Only in books and movies written by inadequate white guys were hot women so inexplicably drawn to losers. At the law faculty Christmas party he’d seen the guys looking at her, rich successful guys, guys from good families, guys who found it acceptable to drape their sweaters over their shoulders. And it wasn’t just because she was so beautiful. They respected her, recognised how smart she was, how driven. And she was there with some loser fuckup from the wrong side of the tracks who couldn’t even put a decent roof over her head. Those movies where the good girl falls for the bad boy always fade to black before the viewer has to watch him irredeemably screw up her promising life.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Recognition [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844407
Comments: 43
Kudos: 102
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	Play It Like It Lays

**Author's Note:**

> So, if you've read anything of mine you'll know that I tend to gallop through a lot of plot. I wanted, for a change, to write something much less plot driven, that just investigated the feelings that accompany a relationship in transition. There's a song because there's always a song. Do some people write without a soundtrack? Cannot relate. 
> 
> The Alphonse Mambo by The Mountain Goats.....here’s a taster.
> 
> I could almost hear the rhythm section  
> Kick in as the sun began to blaze  
> I saw you walk across the plaza  
> Figured I'd just play it like it lays  
> I think I'm gonna be real sick again  
> I think it's gonna happen real soon  
> And I know I can't afford another night here in this place  
> With its sixteenth floor view of the ocean and the dunes  
> 

She was running late because he must have turned off the alarm before it woke her…again. He kept mumbling he hadn’t but she had definitely set it. She’d checked when she went to bed. She remembered quite clearly. So she’d be late again. It made her look bad, disorganised and careless, when she really wasn’t. She needed a good reference from the internship if there was to be any hope of getting job offers when she graduated while she waited to pass the bar. So, remembering that honest communication was important in relationships, she told him her truth. “Jug, you idiot. You’ve made me late. If I get fired it’ll be your fault. Fuck, where are my shoes?”

He was still mostly asleep, buried under the comforter, just a tangle of black hair on the pillow to indicate that the mound under the bedclothes was a human man. “Under the couch. Because you never put anything where it belongs. Ever.” That hurt. Objection your honour, badgering. Since they’d moved into the new place she’d been trying so hard. She knew untidiness made him anxious, stopped him being able to settle down to write, so she’d watched herself carefully. After breakfast her bowl was washed and placed neatly upside down on the drainer, no spoons in the sink, no milk splashes on the counter. Sometimes she even remembered to reprime the coffee machine so he only had to push the button when he got up. When she finished in the bathroom she wiped over the sink with the towel before throwing it into the hamper and making sure it landed in, not near. When she finished a book she found its alphabetically designated home and placed it there. And she didn’t complain about it. In fact she liked doing those things because she did them for him. They seemed like small acts of love, like a soft caress or a love note in his bag lunch. But he didn’t even seem to notice the clean kitchen, the tidy shelves, didn’t understand that it required effort on her part, that she was loving him in those tiny ways all the time.

And he still didn’t write. She realised that she was making a case against him now, delineating the ways in which he was driving her crazy. The writing thing did make her mad. He was squandering his talent because he just would not prioritise. How many books should he have written by now? She wanted to shake him. He spent all day reading other writers’ substandard crap, marking corrections in their work, suggesting changes that would increase their sales and neglecting his real work, his own novel. Then he’d come home, change and rush out again to the bar, serving drunks until the early hours even though he hated bars and hated drunks even more just because he was obsessed with the bills, the savings account. If he’d focus on writing then he’d finally be able to sell a book or a screenplay. That’d make a lot more money than tending bar and would put an end to him falling into bed hours after her and waking, exhausted after four hours sleep, to do it all again. They might even be conscious at the same time long enough to have sex once in a while. Imagine that. And that was the third pillar of her argument, denial of conjugal rights. Objection your honour, the parties are unmarried. Sustained.

Maybe that was the point of the bar work. Making sure she was asleep when he got into bed meant he didn’t have to pretend to be slumbering when she stroked his hip, kissed his neck. He didn’t have to mumble, “So sleepy Betts,” and roll away from her, making her feel a burning rejection in her chest. It was prima facie evidence that he didn’t want her anymore. That thought lay in her belly like a lead weight, heavy and poisonous. But opposing counsel would point out the justification for his unresponsiveness. Observe the plaintiff, they’d say. She had to admit it was hardly surprising. She never had time to run these days, the sandwiches that she scarfed at her desk between phone calls were carb heavy and her mom always warned her that carbs went straight to her thighs. She was twenty five and her thighs already turned her hus…boyfriend’s stomach. No doubt the girls he made cocktails for at the bar were skinny little things dressed up in strappy tops with tight jeans or mini skirts (Objection your honour, hearsay) whereas he only ever saw her in sweats with her hair scraped back or in a rumpled business suit when she kissed him goodbye before dashing out the door in the morning. Hardly an enticing prospect for a red blooded man, especially when he’d been sleeping with her since they were teenagers. She had no surprises left, no feminine mystique to tempt him. He could use a reasonable expectation defence, any man would be bored with her after ten years.

And yet she wanted him as much as she always had, more in fact. She had always thought he was handsome but he had grown into his looks. In high school he was inclined to stay in the shadows, never to draw focus and silly girls tended to overlook him in favour of the more obvious six-packed crush candidates but in college there were always girls mooning over him. He was endearingly unaware of it, didn’t realise that they wanted more from him than the book they were asking to borrow when they approached him in the library. He was oblivious to their ulterior motives when they asked if they could buy him a coffee so that he could explain his ideas about Melville in greater detail. She loved him to distraction but his views on Melville were not an aphrodisiac. He wasn’t used to being the hot guy in the discussion group and was charmingly naive. When she’d informed him that Amy from his postmodern American fiction class clearly wanted him, he denied it out of hand, so she explained the signs, the fingers resting on his forearm when he spoke, the mirroring gestures, the shameless way she twirled a strand of her long dark hair around her finger as she listened to him, all enraptured. He flushed pink and ran his fingers through his hair. “That isn’t going to help Juggie. It’s one of the sexiest things you do. It makes me shiver all over.” He laughed incredulously at the thought that he was, to use her word, a heartthrob. “You’re tall, dark and handsome. You have this brooding and mysterious vibe. You’re Rochester, Heathcliff, Lord Byron.”

What so I’m an adulterous, abusive, necrophiliac with a taste for incest? When you put it like that I see how I’m hard to resist. Don’t girls want nice, muscular, wholesome guys? Don’t they all want Archie?”

“No, my darling man. Lots of clever girls, girls who read, want you. And lots of guys too. They can’t have you because I absolutely won’t share. But you ought to be aware that you’re so ridiculously pretty that strange women will try to bed you. You must say ‘No thank you,’ and come right home to me.” And he did. He always did. Now she began to wonder whether that could really last forever. She recovered her shoes from under the couch and went to work. For the first time she forgot to kiss him goodbye.

XOXOXOXO

He heard the door close behind her. She’d skipped her line in the script. She hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t come in to kiss him before she left. She was running late so that was why. And she was mad because he’d switched off the alarm. He said he hadn’t but he sort of remembered reaching out to stop some annoying jangling so maybe he had. He was so goddamn tired though. He was tired when he woke up and he just got more exhausted all day. He could barely stand behind the bar at night. Lois kept telling him he was in the hospitality industry so he’d better start being hospitable or she’d get a potato to keep bar for her. Its wit would be more sparking than his, she said. He retorted that she hadn’t hired him for his personality, she’d hired him for his looks but she didn’t pick up on the joke. “Being a hotty will only take you so far Jones. Don’t rely on it.” So that was embarrassing because she thought that he thought he was worth looking at. Yet another faux pas to add to the list.

He pushed back the blankets and stared up. His internal screenplay gave the scene heading.  
INT BEDROOM-DAYTIME  
Seedy New York apartment. 

There was a crack that started in the corner of the ceiling and seemed to be growing. It was becoming a preoccupation of his. Sometimes dust fell from it onto the bed. It was unacceptable. They needed to move out. She deserved so much better and he hated that he couldn’t give it to her. She didn’t complain but none of this was what she was brought up to deal with. She was used to nice things and yet he had never really been able to provide for her properly. When they were students that was, in a way, understandable and it was sort of fun, making ends meet by coming up with one hundred and one ways with ramen. Now he was a working man, a grown up. He ought to be doing better but the city was so expensive and his editing job was badly paid. She had dreams and needed to complete the internship to realise them but the bills were weighing heavy on his shoulders while he carried them more or less alone. What would happen if he got sick? What would become of her if he was knocked off the bike? The bar job allowed him to put a little money away each month, a buffer against trouble, but it meant they never spent any time together and when they did all he wanted was to sleep. It felt like he had to make a choice, every financial deposit was a withdrawal on the capital of their relationship.

He’d always known that she could do so much better than him. It was the Woody Allen plot incongruity. Why the hell would Annie Hall waste her time on Alvy Singer? Only in books and movies written by inadequate white guys were hot women so inexplicably drawn to losers. At the law faculty Christmas party he’d seen the guys looking at her, rich successful guys, guys from good families, guys who found it acceptable to drape their sweaters over their shoulders. And it wasn’t just because she was so beautiful. They respected her, recognised how smart she was, how driven. And she was there with some loser fuckup from the wrong side of the tracks who couldn’t even put a decent roof over her head. Those movies where the good girl falls for the bad boy always fade to black before the viewer has to watch him irredeemably screw up her promising life. He was under no illusions. If they hadn’t gotten together when they were children she would never have even looked at him. It was wrong of him to keep her trapped like this but he was too weak to set her free. Maybe she was starting to wake the hell up.

He dragged his heavy limbs upright and made the bed, hospital corners and fluffed pillows. His dad had been in the army so he’d been taught to do those things right without thinking about them. He could hear FP in his head as a disembodied voiceover “If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never do the big things right.” Unfortunately like his father it seemed that he could only do the little things right. The big things were beyond both father and son. He got through the morning routine, noticing with a sore heart that she had refilled the coffee machine for him. When he climbed onto the bike to go to work, part of him wanted to ride away and never come back, (IRIS OUT) to just get out of her life so she could flourish free of the penumbra of his uselessness. Another part of him was much too selfish for that.

XOXOXOXO

As it happened her best efforts paid off and the train had been waiting when she got to the subway platform. She made miraculous time getting to her desk and her anticipated reprimand didn’t materialise. At eleven she was drinking a tepid coffee machine latte in the break room when she remembered that they were out of milk at home. She’d often come home to find him working his way through a box of cereal because he would surely starve without immediate sustenance. She’d meant to ask him to buy some when she said goodbye. Then she realised that she hadn’t kissed him before she left. Her stomach gave a slow, nauseating flip. It seemed symbolic but she didn’t know what of. It’d be a big character moment in one of his screenplays though. She put down her coffee, her face giving away her distress and one of her coworkers asked if she was OK. “Yeah I forgot something this morning. I just need to text my…boyfriend.” Weirdly, yet again, she had almost said “husband.” What was wrong with her? It’d be creepy under any circumstance but especially when they were kind of fighting right now. She grabbed her phone and sent her message quickly. “I’m sorry I was bad tempered. I forgot to say bye. I love you. XOXO P.S. We’re out of milk.” Three little dots appeared by the message almost instantly.

“I did switch off the alarm. I’m an idiot. I love you. XOXOXO.”

So everything was fine. It was just a very minor spat, nothing at all really. De minimus. Except there was a little wriggling maggot at the back of her mind saying that it wasn’t, not really, not at all. 

The idea that there was something wrong between them niggled and irritated her for the rest of the day. She couldn’t focus on anything because her mind simply couldn’t rest, it kept circling the thought, worrying at it like a child wiggling a wobbly tooth with her tongue until it comes out with a gush of blood and tears and pain. If she could just leave it alone perhaps it would fix itself. She half heartedly prepared a brief while she watched the clock on her computer glacially tick away the hours, then the minutes and then the seconds until it was five thirty and she could leave. She usually worked on until at least seven but today she told her colleagues that she had a family obligation, grabbed her bag and ran for the elevator. She texted him on the way down to the lobby. “You working 2nite?” She already knew he wasn’t.

Three dots before she’d left the building. “No. What’s up?” Only he bothered to correctly apostrophise texts. It made her heart feel big and tender in her chest and she smiled. It was such a small thing that she didn’t know if she’d noticed that she loved it before. If she had to make a list of the reasons that she loved him she’d never be able to recall them all. She’d have to say something ridiculous like “everything he says and everything he does,” which was so Hallmark it made her want to vomit. But it was true. Perhaps that was the thing about trite clichés, they actually did express what we feel.

“Date night?” she sent.

He sent the smiley face. That was out of character. He never emojied. She sent the eggplant, stifling a smile as she walked and texted. He sent the blushing face. What were they? Twelve? 

On the way home she stopped at the store and bought fresh veggies and a chicken, grabbing a quart of milk in case he forgot. She wanted steak but the price put her off. He wouldn’t enjoy it if he was worrying how much it had cost. A chicken was economical and tasty. There would be cold cuts for sandwiches and bones for stock. She also bought two vanilla scented candles. It was a luxury but it was cheaper than lingerie and set the same kind of mood. She was excited as she hurried home to turn on the oven. She could fix this. It wasn’t a big deal.

She changed into matching underwear and a dress and sang along to an old playlist as she prepared the food. If she had been born fifty or sixty years earlier this would have been her life. Preparing a meal, wearing something pretty to welcome her husband home. That word again. Why was that in her head the whole time? He would come home from the office and she’d pass him his paper and slippers and she’d just love him as hard as she could, really focus on him, listen to him, help him understand what a wonder he was and how grateful she felt. And, obviously, she would go full yellow wallpaper in about a week and he’d have to have her committed. But she could do it for a night at least and then everything would be back to normal.

XOXOXOXO

When she texted he was reading one of the worst manuscripts ever to be excreted from the mercenary, desultory keyboard of an author too famous to concern himself with punctuation. Jughead was angry that offal like this got published when he didn’t until he remembered that he’d barely written more than a grocery list for months and that made him madder. But then she texted. She was sorry. He was sorry. Everything was OK. Except, with his college degree, he still made less money than Archie who hadn’t even graduated high school. Except their apartment was still a dumpster fire that somehow also had damp patches. Except he was so exhausted all the time that he couldn’t even reliably get it up for the girl he desired with the heat of a warm day at the heart of the sun. Except she was going to fucking leave him if he couldn’t get his shit together. All of which was why the date night felt more like a threat than a promise and the eggplant had him wishing he’d said he was working tonight. Everything was not ok, not really, not at all.

He removed the last of several thousand unnecessary semi colons at six p.m. There was nothing he could do about the adverbs. “‘Hopefully,’ doesn’t mean that, you fucker,” he muttered as he restacked the pages. The writer had the vocabulary of an ATM on the fritz and an advance just shy of half a million dollars. The world was a strip mall parking lot on the road to hell so why would he have expected justice? He stopped by the florist on the way home and pulled a few crumpled notes from his pocket and asked what he could get. The bouquet was more baby’s breath than blooms but he hoped that it was the thought that counted. He was relieved when he smelled cooking as he walked through the door because he couldn’t adequately tip a delivery guy before payday. She was cooking chicken. He was only a little disappointed that it wasn’t steak. 

When he stepped into the kitchen she had a glass of wine in her hand and she was wearing a dress that she hadn’t put on this morning. She had changed her clothes for him. He wanted to weep. She was wonderful and he couldn’t live up to her. He plastered on a resolute grin and kissed her as he produced the flowers with a flourish. “Honey, I’m home!” he said and she smiled back and stroked back his hair in that way that always made him feel so loved. A nice little character note. The gesture, his smile and half closed eyes. 

INT EVENING -KITCHEN  
A young couple in love.

“Dinner’s almost ready. It’s not too expensive because I’ve planned how to stretch the leftovers for three days.” She was pleased about that but he realised how his constant carping about money was stifling her, dulling her ebullience. He smiled again despite the ache in his heart and asked if he could help but she insisted he go and sit down. He went and checked on the crack first. The ceiling hadn’t fallen in yet so that was something. She’d set the little fold out table already and now she put the flowers in a vase between them. It meant it would be hard to see her when she sat down but he didn’t say anything, just sat and waited, a tense, churning feeling in his stomach. She was trying too hard, putting on an act and, he realised with a plunging sensation, so was he. 

They ate the delicious meal that she’d prepared like they were in a commercial. They chatted about work, bad manuscripts and co worker dramas. He made her laugh. He’d always been able to make her laugh and tonight she was keen to be entertained but it felt fake. It felt like when his mom and dad had pretended everything was fine in front of him and his sister before they broke up. Before they broke up would be the silent movie title card for this scene. “Remember the chicken we ate before we broke up? That was a good time.” At least there were no children to be broken by this slow dismemberment. Afterwards he stood to clear the plates but she was playing some fifties housewife character so she made him go and sit on the couch while she did it all, humming to herself like Doris Day as she worked. He sat, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When he woke up he had a crick in his neck and the apartment was in absolute darkness. He crept into the bedroom like a killer in a slasher flick. There was dust in the air from that goddamn crack. She was asleep or doing a good imitation of it, wearing one of his shirts. He thought her pillow looked wet. On the chair by the bed, abandoned when she got ready for bed, was the blue lingerie set he liked best and his heart was splintering.

XOXOXOXO

She had done her best, tried as hard as she knew how and it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. He’d been off from the moment he came home. It was like he was in a play, bringing flowers, mouthing the cliched lines without a hint of irony. She’d laughed at his jokes, flirted with him like they were on a third date and she was considering whether she liked him enough to put out. Not that she’d ever been on a third date, or really any dates. They were just together, always. She’d never been ghosted, never puzzled over some guy’s motivation with her gal pals, never stalked someone on social media. She didn’t know how to play games to get a guy’s interest.

She’d missed out on all of that but in return she had gained an unquestioning advocate. Whatever she was going through he was all in with her. He was always second chair for her, emotionally, professionally, sexually. She’d gained someone who knew, without ever needing to be told, exactly where she needed to be touched, who knew when she didn’t need to come, just needed to feel close, knew that she had to be physically forced to get up and pee afterwards so she didn’t get a UTI. It wasn’t just the sex though. He could read her moods better than she could herself. He’d bring her a candy bar and a cup of jasmine tea at the exact moment that she lost faith in her ability to read another word, he’d kick her out of bed to run when she was reluctant but he knew she needed to destress, he’d hold her close and kiss her forehead when everything felt too big and scary. Of course she’d read all the articles that said that she had to be with him because she chose to be not because she needed him and that sounded fine but she’d grown up with him. She couldn’t imagine who she would have been without his constant, loving, challenging voice in her ear. She knew what she liked in bed but would she have liked different things if she hadn’t met and loved him? It was like telling someone to be who they were apart from their parents, their friends, their home town. Without the things that make us we don’t know ourselves. And they had made each other. At six she’d learned generosity from him when he saved his meagre halloween candy for her because her mom rationed hers so stringently. At ten they’d shared books and she’d learned about the thrill of sharing an idea just by talking. At fifteen she’d learned why his gawky frame always made her blood feel fizzy and erratic. Without him she’d be someone else. Her life was about them encountering the world together. Sometimes she’d torture herself by wondering what she would do if he died and she guessed that she would survive it somehow because people did but she couldn’t picture that survival, didn’t know who she would be on the other side of it. Which all meant that he was it for her. Anything else could be stripped away and leave her still herself, but him? He was a non-negotiable condition of her being.

And now he was asleep on the couch and she was taking off the underwear that she had put on for him but that he had not cared to see. She’d thought that maybe if they could be together physically they could seal up the gaps between them, it would cement them back together. It would be like an undeniable closing argument. It would simply remove doubt. But he didn’t want her. Maybe he just didn’t want them anymore. Her whole body seemed to be collapsing in on itself with the thought that she was losing him. He was slipping away from her by increments and she had no idea how to stop it, how to pull him back. The harder she pulled the weaker her grip seemed to be. 

She got into bed and held onto his pillow. It smelled like him, tobacco, coffee, something piney the source of which she had never managed to ascertain but was just him. She felt the tears running down her cheeks and she didn’t even try to stop them. It was definitely not OK.

In the morning he was asleep when she left. She kissed his head gently and whispered “Jughead Jones, I love you,” and went to work. She imagined talking to a girlfriend about it. She'd say that things were off between her and her…boyfriend and explain that she’d forgotten to kiss him goodbye once and that he’d fallen asleep on the couch during date night. She imagined that she would be told to get over herself, that those things didn’t count as problems in their relationship. If he’d been cheating or gambling away their life savings or had a secret existence as a crime kingpin, then that would be a problem the girlfriend would say. But she knew that she’d be wrong. She kept thinking about sandcastles. Polly and her at the beach as kids, building complicated crenellated sandcastles. Seashells for windows and little flags in the turrets that their dad bought when he went to get ice cream. They worked so hard to make them perfect but the tide would turn and the water would encroach on their fantasies. They refused to accept that oblivion was inevitable building earthworks and dams, diverting the water with channels and reservoirs , working faster and faster, until the tide took first one tower, then another and soon laid waste to the whole kingdom. The goodbye kiss was the first tower to fall and her attempted date night dam had failed to stem the tide. 

It might be the money. Their poverty made him anxious and yet he’d insisted that she take the poorly remunerated Legal Aid Society internship rather than a corporate gig where interns got taken on fancy weekend trips and paid like they were already qualified. He knew that she wanted it and he always insisted she got what she wanted even though he’d had to get a second job and it’d stopped him writing. If she’d known that it might cost her this much she’d have gone to the commercial firm. What he didn’t understand was that what she wanted most was him. She did her work, she ate her lunch, she pretended to be a functioning member of the work force but all she could think about was how to turn back the tide.

XOXOXOXO

When she kissed him goodbye he deliberately didn’t stir. He couldn’t have the conversation they needed to have before she went to work and he definitely couldn’t pretend that everything was OK. So he played possum. When the door clicked closed he rolled over and stared at the fucking crack in the ceiling. It looked worse. He pursued the same strategy at work, saying he had a headache and retreating to a dark room at the back of the office to read his pages. He couldn’t live like this. Decisive action needed to be taken and the passive voice wouldn’t do anymore. He needed to act. He called Lois and begged her to cover his shift, family emergency he said. She agreed but warned him it was a two strikes and you’re out kind of deal. Next time he let her down he needn’t come in again. He called the landlord about the crack in the ceiling. He said that it was dangerous and that his roommate was a lawyer. He thought about why he had said roommate not girlfriend and realised that his subconscious was preparing him for the inevitable. He fought back tears all day and realised that he was probably going let Lois down again. Why should she be any different to everyone else?

He got home at six and grabbed a beer before sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter to wait. He wasn’t interested in drinking it really but it gave him something to hold onto. She came at six fifteen as if they had arranged it. “We need to talk Betts.” he said and she nodded and sat down next to him, her eyes huge and scared. “I know you aren’t happy. I don’t blame you and I’m not mad. Here.” He pushed a piece of paper towards her. She looked at it. It was a bank statement with her name at the top. The balance was three thousand four hundred dollars. She stared at him, bafflement in her eyes. “It’s the savings account. It’s in your name. It always has been. My mom stayed with my dad for much too long because she had nowhere to go, no money to start again. I didn’t want that for you so when I opened the account I set it up in your name. I know it isn’t much but it might pay a deposit and a month down, somewhere cheap. If you want this place then it’s yours of course. I can stay with Kevin for a couple of weeks.” He saw the look of confusion on her face, “You don’t have to decide now. I can get out and give you some time to decide what you want to do. Just let me know.” His voice cracked at the end of the sentence and despite his determination he was weeping.

“You want to break up with me?” she whispered.

“No! But I can’t live like this, waiting for you to leave, never being able to make you happy, not being enough. I need to let you go. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself to a decision you made when you were fifteen. I get it. Really. I’d fucking leave me if I could.”

“Don’t you love me Jug? Why are you paying me to break up with you?” She was crying hard now. He’d known it would be awful but this was intolerable. He felt like his guts were being drawn out and twisted in front of his face. He couldn’t bear it. He wanted to hold her so much.

“I do love you. So much. I’ll always love you. But I’m making you sad and I don’t know how to stop. You’ll be ok Betts. You’re so strong. I’m sorry, it’s breaking me to pieces.”

She stood up silently and walked into the bedroom. He felt like he was in someone else’s apartment, outstaying his welcome but if he was going to leave he needed to grab his things from the bedroom. He stood and walked towards the bedroom door but then paused because she obviously didn’t want to see him right at that moment. He sat down in the kitchen but then couldn’t settle. He sat on the couch but that felt wrong too. He’d just go. Even if he had to walk the streets all night it would be better than this horror show. He swiped up his wallet wondering if he should just leave his keys and she was out of the bedroom, standing in front of the door in an instant. She looked like her mother. Terrifying.

“Oh no you fucking don’t Jughead.” Her face was pale, two livid spots of colour high on her cheekbones. She was incandescent. Somehow it was a relief. He needed to hear her yell at him, to break the terrible, polite silence. “You don’t get to blow up my life and then walk out. I’m going to get a few things off my chest. Then if you want us to break up, I’ll go. I’ve packed a few things. I’m ready to leave you. You need to hear that. I’m as serious as a heart attack about this and I’m good and mad. So watch out. First I’m going to tell you about something that happened in my bar exam study group a few weeks ago. Sit the fuck down.” He did as he was told and he was a little concerned to notice that he was feeling pretty turned on. This was definitely not the moment. “So we had a coffee break and we were just chatting. One of the girls was struggling with the workload and feeling a bit desperate. She said that if she could just be an attorney then she didn’t need anything else, that was her only goal. She would give up anything for it. I thought that sounded crazy. And then the others started saying what their one big thing was. Some girl said that she wanted her parents to be proud. Claire, do you remember Claire from the faculty Christmas party? She said that she wanted a house in the Hamptons. She said that she didn’t much care what she had to do to get it. Someone else wanted children, that was what it was all about for them. They all looked at me and I said I guess that what really matters to me is to do work that matters, that makes a difference.” Jug nodded and smiled. It was what he would imagine her saying. It made him proud. “Anyway Claire, remember Claire? She was wearing that low cut top and kept leaning over in front of you. You must remember her boobs?” He really didn’t remember and didn’t see why it mattered. “She said that if she had a boyfriend as hot as mine that he’d be the one thing she’d want. And I felt bad because it hadn’t occurred to me to say you.” Jug felt his chin wobble and hated that he was so weak and needy. “But Jug, I worked it out. Why that was. I didn’t say you because my life is just unthinkable without you. I don’t understand my life without you in it. If you and I break up then I don’t know what I’ll want because I don’t know who that person will be. You’re the foundation that any ambition I have is built on. It’s like if something is always there, in front of your eyes, after a while you don’t even notice it but if it suddenly disappears you don’t understand anything you’re seeing. That’s the first thing. Questions?”

“Too soon to ask for Claire’s number?” He said and she hit him across the shoulder, not entirely playfully.

“Second, I love you and I’m so sorry that you don’t know that with every fibre of your being. That’s on me. I ought to tell you more. I feel like I’m showing you with the things I do but I’m not sure that you always see that. So I should tell you. Jug, I love you from the moment I open my eyes in the morning. You are so dear to me that I think about you and smile whenever I feel a little sad. My grandma was religious. She used to say that when she felt low she thought about Jesus, surrounded by the little children and then she felt happy again. I think about you, about the way you roll your shirt sleeves when you get home from work, about the way your hair falls into your eyes when you look up at me from between my legs, about the way you walk about mumbling when you can’t get a sentence to go right. You’re the answer to every question I ask about meaning and purpose, your fingers, your eyes, you, you, you. How can I make you know it?” He was crying again and now she was too and she rushed over to him and held him and they cried together.” Please Jug, don’t let’s break up. Please don’t ever break up with me.”

“I love you too Betts. I wish I could tell you how much I love you. I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy, that’s the only thing that matters,” he whispered into her hair. “i just feel like I’m such a fucking failure. Look at this place, you shouldn’t be living like this.”

“Jug you aren’t the sole breadwinner you know. This is a joint enterprise. If I cared that much about luxurious accommodation I would have taken the corporate job. It was within my power to get my boyfriend a swanky apartment but I chose to keep you in squalor. I don’t feel guilty. You need to get over taking responsibility for everything.” She looked up at him with those huge, fathomless green eyes and said, “My dad played golf.” He had absolutely no idea what to do with a non sequitur like that.

“OK?” he prompted gently.

“Are you familiar with the rules of golf?”

“Well Miss Cooper, I know it’s hard to imagine but I was never a member of the fucking country club so I have only the most tentative grasp of which end of the stick you are supposed to hit the ball with.”

“I figured but I didn’t want to assume. So say you whack the ball into some rotten situation, trees and brambles or something right?”

“Yeah I guess although I’m not sure “whack” is the term.”

“Shut up. You just called it a stick. Right so you get two options. You can choose to pick up the ball like a wimp and throw it over your shoulder and forfeit a shot. Maybe the situation will be better, maybe you’ll throw it somewhere worse. Or, second choice, you can play it as it lays. So you say, this is a shitty situation but it is what it is and I’m going to get out of it. We’re in a shitty situation. The apartment is a dump, we’re not doing a great job at communicating because we’re scared to hurt each other, you aren’t writing because you’re exhausted. OK, that’s the situation, you can throw everything up in the air, break up, see where the wreckage lands or we can work on it together, play it where it lays. Together. Does that make sense? I know you aren’t a big fan of the sports metaphor.” 

He nodded. “You’re saying that you want to take up golf?” She hit his shoulder again. “No, I do. I get it.”

“OK, so will you do something for me?” She rested her head against his chest, against his shirt that was already damp with her tears.

“Anything,” he said, without hesitation.

“Please will you quit the bar? It’s making you exhausted. We’ll manage without the money until I get a real job. You want me to have all my dreams but one of my most important dreams is you being published. I can’t be happy when you aren’t writing. Why don’t you try submitting some chapters to your boss? I know it isn’t a screenplay but it’d be a start. Please?” He knew he would panic about the money but she wanted this and he couldn’t deny her anything so he nodded and she sighed against him softly.

“Will you unpack your bag now?” he murmured.

“Didn’t pack one. I knew we weren’t breaking up. You’re crazy about me.” She grinned up at him and he laughed explosively. “Oh and when I was yelling at you before, were you getting turned on? You got that little excited blush on your cheeks that you get when you’re getting hard.”

“Maybe,” he grumbled, looking at the floor.

“Look me in the eye Jughead and tell me if you were hard.” Her voice was commanding, strict, he twitched a little and looked at the floor grinning, feeling the same blush on his skin. She laughed. “Stand up, get into the bedroom and give me the attention that I need. Do it right the fuck now.” And he was doing as he was told, so relieved because she still loved him and she wouldn’t leave him and he actually could still get hard and she wanted him, really wanted him and he wondered if maybe, maybe maybe this might actually be forever.

XOXOXOXO

They almost made it to the bedroom but he was so into the bossy voice that he had to go down on her in the hallway, just hitching up her skirt and pulling off her panties to get to her and he’s so fucking good at that that her knees gave out and she collapsed onto the rug in a flurry of giggles that she stifled as fast as she could to say, “Why have you stopped? Did I give you permission to stop? Get your tongue back on me this second. I’ll tell you when you can…oh my god, you’re an artist, I love you so much.”

She was too boneless with rapture to be bossy after her second orgasm so he picked her up bridal style and deposited her on the bed, kissing her and unbuttoning her blouse. She still wanted him so much that she could hardly breathe but she’d learned, a little late but better late than never, that he needed to hear it, needed the words not just the writhing and the gasping. “I love you and I want you and I’ll never stop wanting you. You’re unbelievably sexy.” He stopped and looked at her and gave her the most radiant, amazing, beautiful smile and went back to work with even more enthusiasm. So that works, she thought.

He touched her in exactly the right way because he knows how to get more out of her even when she feels spent, because he’s been practising since they were sixteen years old and because he pays attention. She knew that no-one else would ever touch her like him, this was only for them, this unique and beautiful thing. So she told him that and he gasped and began to breathe harder still and he was moaning against her neck that he dreams of her and wakes up and his dream is real and he’s so grateful and she cries and comes and cries again. It is more intense than the first time they were together.

She wanted to take him in her mouth but he wouldn’t let her. “Too close Betts, much too close. Been too long,” so she guided him inside her and he rocked gently because if he did much more she knew he would come, she recognised all his tells. “It’s OK Jug, I’m so satisfied. You have more than done your marital duties by me.” There it was again, but this time out loud. Would it make him scared? But it didn’t, it made him come, harder than she’d known before, longer and with a cry that sounded like triumph.

He carried her to the bathroom and told her to pee and leaned against the shower while she did and she didn’t care. He fetched the glass of water that they always shared afterwards and she spoke directly about the elephant in the room. “I’m sorry about the marital thing Jug. I don’t know where that came from. I’m not angling for a proposal, honestly. It’s something that’s been jangling about in my subconscious. I keep thinking of you as my husband and…I don’t know…weird.”

“I liked it. Couldn’t you tell?” And he looked at her with love in his beautiful eyes and she was overwhelmed by how tender she felt towards him so she held his head against her breasts and stroked his hair and kissed him softly until he fell asleep.

XOXOXOXO

Three months later he knows that they’re doing so much better. She had been right, the bar job had made him so tired that he lost sight of who he was and when he lost himself there was no way he could hold onto her. It felt like something had needed to break so that they could grow into a new way of being together, like a chick breaking out of the eggshell, ready for a new life. He’s still anxious about money but he grew a pair and asked his boss, Neil, for a raise and got one. He’s an assistant editor instead of a junior assistant editor. He had a piece published by an online magazine and made five hundred dollars from that. He didn’t put the money in the savings account, which is now in their joint names, at her insistence. He keeps that cash in an envelope in his night stand, earmarked for something he wants to buy. He doesn’t criticise her when she’s messy, he tries to notice when she clears up, fills the coffee machine, cooks his favourite meal and he recognises that that’s her way of telling him she loves him. 

He knows she’s trying too. She kisses him goodbye in the mornings and says, “You know I love you, right?” She steps into the shower with him and says, “I want you, you’re sexy,” and he shows her that he feels the same because for her it’s all about the actions. She’s been offered a real job with the Legal Aid Society after she graduates Cornell so she’ll be earning a real salary while she studies for the bar exam in February. The landlord sent a guy who fixed the crack in the ceiling but Jug has been looking at listings anyway, searching for somewhere better. He has this daydream about lifting her up and carrying her over the threshold of a bright new apartment somewhere, maybe Brooklyn.

He’s written everyday since that terrible, wonderful evening. Last week he asked Neil if he’d look over the first three chapters of a new novel, give him some pointers, offer criticism. It means that when Neil stalks over to Jug’s desk and gestures him into his big corner office he’s not as freaked out as he might normally be. “Jughead, your novel,” he says and Jug has absolutely no idea if he’s about to say “is complete dogshit. You must stop writing immediately.” Or “is a work of transcendent genius and reading it was a religious experience.” He says neither. “It’s good,” he says. “I like it a lot. We’d be interested in publishing it if you’re looking for a deal. I can offer you fifteen thousand as an advance and then seven and a half percent. You interested?” And Jug feels like he’s having an out of body experience. He wants to call Betty, wants her in this room with him. He nods at Neil who produces a contract. “You can sign now if you like or take it away and think about it.”

“I’d like to get my wi…girlfriend to look it over. She’s an attorney so… Is that OK?” he says and Neil, suppressing a smile at the slip, agrees.

“Usually when I sign a new writer I invite them out for a little celebratory dinner. Shall we say Saturday? You and your wife?”

“Oh, she’s not…we aren’t married. My girlfriend, Betty.”

“Whatever you say,” Neil replies with a grin.


End file.
